TAJ MAHAL, ROBERT FINLEY, DOM FLEMONS AND MORE ON MUSIC MAKER RELIEF FOUNDATION’s 25TH ANNIVERSARY COMPILATION ‘BLUE MUSE,’ OUT FEB. 1, 2019!

Tintype of Algia Mae Hinton by Timothy Duffy

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Music Maker Relief Foundation is celebrating twenty-five year of great works with the release of Blue Muse, a book of tintype photographs made by Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF) chief Tim Duffy, a terrific music CD featuring 21 tracks recorded by Music Maker Relief artists plus some guy named Eric Clapton and another guy named Taj Mahal, as well as the great Don Flemons, and a graphic novel on the origin story of MMRF written by Tim and Denise Duffy with art by Gary Dumm, all in honor of Music Maker Relief Foundation's Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, and several of the artists that, thanks to you, MMRF has been able to assist.
  
Music Maker has provided support for over 400 artists over the course of its 25 years. This fantastic collection of releases should go far in continuing that great work. MMRF has provided financial support via over eleven-thousand financial grants, nearly six-thousand live performances, and releasing 2,357 songs all supporting elderly and indigent musicians. 

Want a taste? Let's start with this exclusive Taj Mahal cut from this stellar, essential collection!

Music Maker Relief Foundation – the non-profit organization that helps traditional, southern musicians who live in poverty and has been featured on PBS News Hour, CBS News, and NPR – will release a compilation celebrating its 25th anniversary entitled ‘Blue Muse’ on February 1. The album features contributions from Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and 17-time GRAMMY winner Eric Clapton (in a previously unreleased track), Blues Hall of Famer, two-time GRAMMY winner, and Americana Music

Tintype of Captain Luke by Timothy Duffy

 Association Lifetime Achievement Award winner Taj Mahal, “more than convincing” (NY Times) soul man and Dan Auerbach favorite Robert Finley, and GRAMMY-winner founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops Dom Flemons. In keeping with Music Maker’s mission to preserve the musical traditional of the south by supporting the musicians who make it, the album spans a range of living southern music culture and fans will hear blues, folk, songster, jump blues, soul, Appalachian, garage blues, and gospel musics here.

The 21-track set features liner notes by Vogue and Guardian writer Rebecca Bengal. Big Legal Mess Records has signed several Music Maker artists such as Finley, Willie Farmer, Ironing Board Sam, Sam Frazier, Jr., and Theotis Taylor. Other highlights include top 20 Billboard hit “Route 66,” performed here by Atlanta’s pianist and World War II veteran Eddie Tigner. Sam is a veteran of several performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in the 1970s and 2010s and at Lincoln Center. John Dee Holeman is a National Heritage Fellowship award winner. Boo Hanks has performed at Newport Folk Festival.

‘Blue Muse’ accompanies a photography book of the same name by Tim Duffy coming out February 25 on UNC press in association with the New Orleans Museum of Art; and an exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art premiering April 25. 

Tintype of Alabama Slim by Timothy Duffy

Notable session musicians include guitar great Cool John Ferguson on Captain Luke’s “Old Black Buck,” Producer/artist Jimbo Mathus and former Al Green drummer Howard Grimes on “Age Don’t Mean a Thing” by Finley, GRAMMY-nominated bluesman Guy Davis on Flemons’ “Polly Put the Kettle On,” Mahal joining John Dee Holeman for “Hambone,” Will Sexton accompanying Farmer on “I Am The Lightnin,” and garage legend Jack Oblivian lends his guitar to Ironing Board Sam’s “Loose Diamonds.”

1. La Collegiale - The Grotto Sessions (featuring Guitar Gabriel, Ironing Board Sam, Etta Baker, Captain Luke, Alabama Slim, Neal Pattman)
2. Spike Driver Blues - Taj Mahal
3. Old Black Buck - Captain Luke
4. Route 66 - Eddie Tigner
5, I Got The Blues - Alabama Slim
6. Age Don’t Mean A Thing - Robert Finley
7. Polly Put The Kettle On - Dom Flemons
8. Hambone - John Dee Holeman
9. Snap Your Fingers - Algia Mae Hinton
10. I am the Lightning - Willie Farmer
11. D.O.C. Man - Dave McGrew
12. Sweet Valentine - Martha Spencer & Kelley Breiding
13. I Wanna Boogie - Boot Hanks w/ Dom Flemons
14. Mississippi Blues - Eric Clapton w/ Tim Duffy
15. Landlord Blues - Guitar Gabriel
16. Widow Woman - Drink Small
17. Cabbage Man - Sam Frazier, Jr.
18. Sing It Louder - Cary Morin
19. Loose Diamonds - Ironing Board Sam
20. I Know I’ve Been Changed - The Branchettes
21. Something Within Me - Theotis Taylor

For more information on Music Maker Relief Foundation, please contact Nick Loss-Eaton at nick.losseaton@gmail.com or 718.541.1130 or Cornelius Lewis at 919.643.2456.

The indomitable Soul of iRONiNG BOARD SAM's Super Spirit!

fb // big legal mess records //
// music maker relief fund //

But first a commercial break ::




I have evidently lived a sheltered life. I've heard the name Ironing Board Sam here and there, but somehow I'd never actually heard him. Bruce Watson's Big Legal Mess Records is changing all that with a new release called Super Spirit, produced by Bruce Watson and the Rev. Sir Dr. Jimbo Mathus.

Do you remember how much you liked those old Fat Possum releases by Super Chikan, Asie Payton, Charles Caldwell, or that kind of weird for Fat Possum Solomon Burke album? Ironing Board Sam's Super Spirit is like those. It's just a treat to listen to.

There's so much going on in each song, from the proto-African underpinnings of Baby You Got It, to the pleading, slow-burn soul of I Still Love You (which reminds me of something off that Solomon Burke album,) the Velvets/Stones-as-soul-rock of I Can't Take It, the garage gospel raver I Want To Be There, or the slow Chicago blues heartache of I'm Looking For A Woman, it's really a classic album in the good ol' Fat Possum Records vein.

It's well-worn and silk shirted southern soul without a whiff of the stink of retro, it's super rock without losing its groove, it's funky and adventurous in silk socks and muddy alligator shoes. But best of all it's the blues, baby. Sweet Bobby Bland/ZZ Hill-grooved blues...of today!
All y'all need this. Get you some Super Spirit!

Here's a brand new track from an album on where else but Big Legal Mess ::

Here's a short documentary on the man, the myth, etc...

Ironing Board Sam's Return (short documentary) from Tom Ciaburri on Vimeo.

CHRiS COTTON: The MAN who W/S/Could be King or How You Can Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Chris Cotton.

photo courtesy of tiina liimu
CHRiS COTTON plays THE DEEP BLUES FESTiVAL

First of all let's get this straight: You can call Chris Cotton a lot of names. Call him Cotton, Slappy, Wingnut McSpazz-O-Tron, yr daddy, or Mr. Cotton, Sir. But don't call him a bluesman. And don't call his music blues, either. Gatemouth Brown suffered the same curse and carried a similar cross. What Mr. Brown played wasn't really blues either but to a lot of ears it might have sounded like it. I won't bother to go into that whole "black man playing guitar it must be blues" thing. You are smart enough to figure that out. Chris Cotton doesn't hardly sound a thing like Mr.Gatemouth Brown but both do (or in the case of Mr. Brown "did") excel at spreading their sound across a rich loamy rock-free field of music while still sounding completely themselves. Both have done all they can to dig themselves out of that shiny Tommy Bahama shirt laden blues ghetto. Here's the thing about Cotton's music. The more you hear it and the more intently you listen to it, the more you find is revealed. Cotton plays with a deceptive ease. Not a laid back hippie ease but rather that of one comfortable with himself and his instrument, his fellow players, and his skills. Skills which you'll find are utterly formidable. The comfort and ease with which Cotton's singing and playing come across makes his music feel like you're wearing all your favorite clothes at the same time. Maybe your worn old punk rock boots with your coolest dark blue country cowboy shirt with bright Pearline buttons and cigarette burns, soft old jeans you stole from your dad with the patches and holes that mark and reveal where they've been and that dirty old slouch hat with the sweat stained band you picked up in Memphis. But when you start to peel off all the layers it's still the original thing underneath. Cotton's music is organic. It's who he is. It's what he does. Without creepy wispy adaptation or precious faux affectation or special outfits or any other extemporaneous B.S.

Chris Cotton is a songster. I don't think he'll mind me calling him that. What the hell is a songster? Leadbelly was a songster. He knew all the hits of the day. Mississippi John Hurt and Furry Lewis too. They made those songs theirs. They knew blues, too, but it wasnt' all they knew. Same with Cotton's special rider man Blind Willie McTell. And just like them, Cotton plays pop music. You just don't recognize it that way. The difference is history. Cotton's musical forefathers were usually one man operations that played what was happening then and not often for a socially mixed audience, if you know what I mean. Cotton, too, is playing what's happening then. The difference is a couple hundred years of musical history. It's as if Cotton has somehow absorbed the ink from a two-hundred year long songbook and he uses that songbook for watercolor paper covering it with his own original washes and colors mixed with the original ancient ink to paint textures both coarse and fine. Textures like the sitar in the third track of the three track suite that holds the belly of the album, and the deft vocal exchanges with friend and neighbor John Henry on I'm Going Home (one of two Cotton co-writes on this ten piece album) as well as the duets with fellow west coaster(and fine artist in her own right)Paige. It's the HERE and NOW that Cotton filters the music of THEN through.
The unfortunate thing for Chris Cotton is that people rarely LiSTEN to music anymore. When was the last time you put on an album and sat down on the couch and actually listened to it without some sort of multi-tasking? And LISTENiNG is what has to happen for Cotton to escape that blues ghetto and the clutch of The Dudes who care more about what gauge of strings their god Robert Johnson used on Terraplane than they do about being moved. Taken at face value Cotton will be accepted or dismissed based on blues taste makers. Just as Gatemouth Brown was. Unfortunately for Chris Cotton most of the taste the bald headed pony tailed panama hatted bluesers (or the spelling they would probably prefer "Bluezers") have is in their mouth. Blanket indictment? Damn Straight. Chris Cotton and I would be more than happy for you to prove us wrong. Cotton has assembled a dynamite album that is akin to his previous releases but a couple years stronger and deeper. An album that rewards the listener who pays attention with each subsequent play. An album that, once you hear it will cause your jaw to drop and your eyes to bug out when you find out it was recorded completely live with no overdubs. Do any of your wankin' souless bluezerstars do that? Cotton would, should, could be king. His coronation is up to you.

FUN FACTS!
Actually The Big Sea contains eleven pieces including the Cotton style hill-country hidden track Farm Jam which drops at three minutes in. This track features Cotton on guitar as well as John Henry on bass and Dirty Simonson on drums. This combo does not appear elsewhere on the CD.
Cotton briefly went to college where I grew up but we never met. Countless years later I got to back him up on drums at Deep Blues Festival number one.

Chris Cotton on MySpace
Cotton's gorgeous website

BUY!
You can get yr grubby little paws on The Big Sea
directly from mr.Cotton via MySpace


LiSTEN!
Three tracks from The Big Sea
BLUES and SADNESS MP3
.44 PiSTOL WOMAN MP3
WHAT WOULD YOU DO MP3

CHECK OUT the post on Cotton by our pal at NiNEBULLETS.NET!

WATCH COTTON!